Comparison of the effect of individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy on the severity of premenstrual symptoms on Women with premenstrual Disorders

Most women experience one of the symptoms of PMS and these symptoms affect the quality of life and relationships of women in the family, workplace and community. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy on the severity of premenstrual symptoms.

The research design was quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test with three experimental groups and control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of all married women in Tehran. From this population, 54 people were selected as a statistical sample by the available method and randomly replaced in three groups (two experimental groups and one control group). The required findings were collected using the Premenstrual Syndrome Questionnaire (Steiner et al., 2003) in three rounds: pre-test, post-test and follow-up test, and using repeated measures analysis of variance test Was analyzed.

The results showed that the mean severity of premenstrual symptoms in individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy groups decreased compared to the pretest and the results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the effect of therapies on The reduction in the severity of premenstrual symptoms was significant and stable (p≤0.001) and the results of comparing individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy showed that there was no significant difference between individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy approaches.

Considering the effectiveness of individual and couple Emotion Focused Therapy, this approach can be used as one of the intervention methods by marriage counselors and family therapists.